Newell blanched; I could barely rouse myself to do more than nod my thanks to the sheriff. Sidney wheeled the horse around and I held tight to his back as we rode up the carriage drive, followed by five of the lord high sheriff's armed riders at a discreet distance.

"You have acquitted yourself well, Bruno," Sidney said in a low voice over his shoulder. "You have risked your life to track down a murderer and a priest without revealing yourself. The sheriff will take the credit for the arrests but Walsingham will be told it was down to your tenacity."

"I had given up hope of seeing you again," I muttered to his back as he urged the horse to a brisk trot, a wave of exhaustion suddenly flooding over me. "I thought my message had not reached you."

"A kitchen boy from Lincoln brought your package in the hour before dawn," he replied over his shoulder, his voice whipped away by the wind, "knocking on the gate of Christ Church as if it were the gates of Hell, apparently. He told the porter it was urgent-fought tooth and nail to get to me, they said-but the porter would not wake the dean before first light, and the dean would not wake me until after morning service, the pair of fools, hence the delay. The boy, to his credit, would not part with his package except into my own hands, however the dean tried to coax him. As soon as I saw what was inside, I knew you were in serious danger and had the dean rouse the high sheriff. We had no idea the pursuivant's men would beat us to it."

"Slythurst sent them after me," I said, unable to keep the bitterness from my voice. "He was determined to have those letters."

"I would guess he is a low-rank informer trying to prove himself," Sidney said. "Walsingham has them placed all over the university, though he tends not to notify his people of one another's existence. He thinks it keeps them on their toes."

"Where are the letters now?" I asked, keeping my voice low.

"Safely on their way to London in the hands of the dean's most trusted messenger," Sidney said. "They will be decoded there and used as evidence at the trial. But from the little I could read, they will be enough to see Jerome Gilbert hanged for a traitor." He paused, turning the horse out of the cart track and back onto the lane that led toward the city. "The attorney general will likely turn this to our advantage by adding four charges of murder. It will be a useful reminder to the populace of the Jesuits' ruthlessness."

"But Thomas Allen killed the three Lincoln men," I protested. "He confessed it."

"Well, he is not able to confess now, is he, and that version would have far less public impact than to blame the Catholic priest," Sidney said. "Jerome Gilbert. He is the younger son of a wealthy Suffolk family-it was his brother, George, who provided all the funds for Edmund Campion's mission. He fled to France when Campion was executed-his brother must have gone with him." He shook his head angrily. "They should have been watched more closely."

"Will they catch Jerome, do you think?"

"The sheriff has the hue and cry after them on every route out of Oxford. They will not get far."

"And Sophia?" I whispered anxiously.

"She will be arrested with him," Sidney threw over his shoulder with apparent unconcern. "The rest will depend on her. If she protests her loyalty to him, she will likely be taken for questioning."

"Tortured?" I sat up straighter, leaning close to his ear. "But she is with child."

I felt him shrug. "Then she may plead her belly, if her family will buy her release from gaol until the child is born. That will give her time to decide if her loyalty to Gilbert survives his execution. He will be taken to London to coax from him what more he knows. Where did you find the letters, anyway?" he asked casually, leaning back toward me.

I hesitated, knowing that I was about to risk my credibility in Walsingham's service, if Sophia should insist on telling the truth. But the thought of her suffering the kind of tortures Walsingham had detailed to me made me feel I had no choice.

"Sophia gave them to me," I said, hearing the hollow ring of falsehood in my own voice. I wondered if Sidney detected it too, because I felt his shoulders stiffen beneath my hands.

"Sophia? Really? Then she betrayed him willingly?"

"Yes. She discovered that he planned for her to meet with an accident on her passage to France. She asked for my help."

For a few moments, the only sound was the soft squelch of the horses' hooves on the muddy turf and the jangling of the armed riders behind us. Sidney appeared to be weighing this up. After a few moments he craned his head back toward me.

"Is this the truth, Bruno?"

"Absolutely."

"Then by that action she may just have saved herself. Though it will prove rather awkward if her story differs from yours. Something you may want to think about before you repeat it to anyone else." He let the sentence hang in the air. I did not miss the note of warning.

"What will happen to Lady Tolling?" I asked, keen to change the subject before he could press me further.

"Her estates will be attainted. She and those Catholics among her household will be imprisoned. If she is willing to inform, she may be spared her life."

I thought of the tall, elegant woman, so calmly receiving us into her grand gatehouse chamber-a room that would not now belong to her heirs, because of me. Of the six people who had been present in that room, perhaps I would be the only survivor, once Lady Tolling, Jerome, and Sophia had been arrested and tried. I could only hope that Sophia would have the sense, once Jerome was arrested, not to try and prove her devotion by following him to martyrdom, for then, in trying to save her, I would have delivered her to a worse death, and Sidney and Walsingham would know that I was too easily moved to pity, that my truthfulness was liable to be compromised by my heart.

"And what of us?" I asked, as the road became firmer and Sidney spurred the horse to a canter, causing me to slip sideways and grab frantically at his shoulders for balance.

"We return to London by river, once you are rested," he said. "The palatine is tired of Oxford, but I have persuaded him to stay another day for the luxury of returning by boat. Once Gilbert is arrested there will be no need for you to testify at the inquest into Roger Mercer's death tomorrow. You had better keep your head down-the less you are publicly associated with the circumstances of Gilbert's discovery and arrest, the better for your cover. But rest assured, my friend-you will be well rewarded," he added, as if this must be my main concern.

Well rewarded, I thought, as the outlying dwellings of Oxford became visible in the distance. I had narrowly escaped with my life, but others would not be so fortunate, and before I reached London I would have to decide how much I would tell Walsingham of what I knew. I still believed that Jerome Gilbert had intended to remove Sophia as an obstacle to his mission, despite his violent denials and her dogged faith in him, but I found it hard to believe that he was a danger to the English state, any more than I believed that Lady Eleanor Tolling, with her assiduous care for the missionary priests, was a traitor to her country. And while I would not be sorry to see Jenkes apprehended, would I also hand over good-natured, slow-witted Humphrey Pritchard to the torturers, or earnest Master Richard Godwyn? Walsingham had warned me that this kind of choice was part of his service, and I needed to repay his faith in me if I were to have any hope of gaining the queen's patronage. Playing politics with the lives of others was part of the path to advancement, but that, as I was just beginning to understand, was the real heresy. The only reward I now wanted was to see Sophia take the chance of escape that my lie would offer her, and not to consider martyrdom as a substitute for love.